The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss
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please Joe?’
She shook her head doubtfully. ‘Whatever else Joe is, he’s not a mercenary man. I guess at present he’s just waiting to see if a nice girl like Kylie can cure Larry of his drinking habits.’
‘As you say, she’s a nice girl right enough. But can she?’
She looked straight at Clift. ‘There’s danger just in trying. Still, there’s danger in everything. I should know. My hobby’s freefall parachuting.’
‘I remember. And I’ve seen the articles on you in the glossies. Sounds like a wonderful hobby.’
She looked at him rather suspiciously, suspecting envy. ‘You get your kicks burrowing into the earth. I like to be way above it, with time and gravity in suspense.’
He pointed down the trail, where three figures on mules could be discerned in a cloud of dust.
‘Your husband’s on his way back. He was telling me he’s also got time in suspense, in his laboratories.’
‘Time isn’t immutable, as the science of chaos proves. Basically Joe’s inertial disposal system is a way of de-stabilizing time. Ten years ago, the principles behind it were scarcely glimpsed. I like that. Basically, I’m on Joe’s side, Bernard, so it’s no good trying to get round me.’
He laughed, but ignored the jibe.
‘If time isn’t immutable, what is it? Being up against millions of years, I should be told.’
‘Time’s like a fog with a wave structure. It’s all to do with strange attractors. I can send you a paper about it. Tamper with the input, who knows what output you’ll get.’
Clift laughed again.
‘Just like life, in fact.’
‘Also subject to chaos.’
They climbed down the hill path to meet Bodenland and his companions, covered in dust after the ride.
‘Oh, that was just wonderful,’ Kylie said, climbing off her mule and giving Mina a hug. ‘The desert is a marvellous place. Now I need a shower.’
‘A shower and a dozen cans of beer,’ supplemented Larry.
‘It was wonderful, but it achieved nothing,’ Bodenland said. ‘However, we have left a pretty trail of flags behind. All I hope is that the ghost train calls again tonight.’
‘What about Larry?’ she asked, when they were alone.
‘He’s off with Kylie tomorrow, whatever happens tonight.’
‘Don’t look so sour, Joe. They are supposed to be on honeymoon, poor kids. Where would you rather be – on a beach in Hawaii, or in this godforsaken stretch of Utah?’
He smiled at her, teasingly but with affection. ‘I’d rather be on that ghost train – and that is where I’m going to be tonight.’
But Bodenland was in for disappointment.
The night brought the stars, sharp as diamonds over the desert, but no ghost train. Bodenland and his group stayed by the mobile canteen, which remained open late to serve them. They drank coffee and talked, waiting, with the helicopter nearby, ever and again looking out into the darkness.
‘No Injuns,’ Kylie said. ‘No John Wayne stagecoach. The train made its appearance and that was it. Hey, Joe, a student was telling me she saw ghostly figures jumping – no, she said floating – off the train and landing somewhere by the dig, so she said. What do you think of that?’
‘Could be the first of later accretions to what will be a legend. Bernie, these students are going to want to bring in the media – or at least the local press. How’re you going to handle that?’
‘I rely on them,’ Clift said. ‘They know how things stand. All the same … Joe, if this thing shows up tonight, I want to be on that helicopter with you.’
‘My god, here it comes,’ Mina screamed, before Bodenland could reply.
And it was there in the darkness, like something boring in from outer space, a traveller, a voyager, an invader: full of speed and luminescence, which seemed to scatter behind it, swerving across the Escalante. Only when it burst through mesas did its lights fade. This time it was well away from the line of flags planted during the day, heading north, and some miles distant from the camp.
Bodenland led the rush for the helicopter. Larry followed and jumped into the pilot’s seat. The others were handed quickly up, Mina with her vidcam, Clift last, pulling himself aboard as the craft lifted.
Larry sent it scudding across ground, barely clearing the camper roofs as it sped up into the night air.
‘Steady,’ Kylie said. ‘This isn’t one of your models, Larry!’
‘Faster,’ yelled Mina. ‘Or we’ll lose it.’
But they didn’t. Fast though the ghost train sped, the chopper cut across ground to it. Before they were overhead, Joe was being winched down, swinging wild as they banked.
The strange luminous object – strangely dull when close, shaped like a phosphorescent slug – was just below them. Bodenland steadied himself, clasped the wire rope, made to stand on the roof as velocities matched – and his foot went through nothingness.
He struggled in the dark, cursing. Nothing of substance was below his boots. Whatever it was, it was as untouchable as it was silent.
Bodenland dangled there, buffeted by the rotors overhead. The enigmatic object tunnelled into the night and disappeared.
The shots of the ghost train in close up were as striking as the experience had been. Figures were revealed – revealed and concealed – sitting like dummies inside what might have been carriages. They were grey, apparently immobile. Confusingly, they were momentarily replaced by glimpses of trees, perhaps of whole forests; but the green flickered by and was gone as soon as seen.
Mina switched the video off.
‘Any questions?’ she asked, flippantly.
Silence fell.
‘Maybe the trees were reflections of something – on the windows, I mean,’ Larry said. ‘Well, no … But trees …’
‘It was like a death train,’ Kylie said. ‘Were those people or corpses? Do you think it could be … No, I don’t know what we saw.’
‘Whatever it was, I have to get back to Dallas tomorrow,’ Joe said. ‘With phantom trains and antediluvian bones, you have a lot of explaining to do to someone, Bernie, my friend.’
Next morning came the parting of the ways at St George airport. Bodenland and Mina were going back to Dallas, Larry and his bride flying on to their Hawaii hotel. As they said their farewells in the reception lounge, Kylie took Bodenland’s hand.
‘Joe, I’ve been thinking about what happened at Old John. You’ve heard of near-death experiences, of course? I believe we underwent a near-death experience. There’s a connection between what we call the ghost train and that sixty-five-million-year-old grave of Bernard Clift’s. Otherwise it’s too much of a coincidence, right?’
‘Mm, that makes sense.’
‘Well, then. The shock of that discovery, the old grave, the feeling of death which prevailed over the whole camp – with vultures drifting around and everything – all that precipitated us into a corporate near-death experience. It took a fairly conventional form for such experiences. A tunnel-like effect, the sense of a journey. The corpses on the train, or whatever they were. Don’t you see, it all fits?’
‘No, I don’t see that anything fits, Kylie, but you’re a darling and interesting girl, and I just hope that Larry takes proper care of you.’
‘Like you take care of me, eh, Pop?’ Larry said. ‘I’ll take care of Kylie – and that’s my